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Monday, 29 June 2015

Another challenge from Crafty Cardmakers and More - this time to use a sentiment on your project. While it would be lovely if the sentiment was the focus of the project, so long as there is one, it fits the challenge. So, what are you waiting for?

I was asked to make a card for a friend whose mother got married recently. The colour scheme for the wedding is white/silver, so I looked out all my white and grey card as well as some silver mirror card and gave my Big Shot Pro a bit of a work out!

I've intentionally put the watermark over the couple's names. I used papers from two CDRoms - the floral one is from my Flower Power CD and the very pale lacy one is from Ivory Cats. In both cases, the papers were coloured, but I took the colour out in Photoshop Elements before printing. I generated the sentiment and matted it using Spellbinders dies. The flowers were made using dies from Sizzix, Memory Box, Cheery Lynn and quite possibly others. (I keep my 'normal' sized dies in a box intended to store CDs, in little CD sleeves, so the original packaging is long gone.) I've used some liquid pearls for flower centres and the tips of stamens.

Now, although I used some of the flattest of the flowers I've got dies for, this card wouldn't easily fit into an envelope, so I made a box too.

The label here is blank so my friend can address it herself, and it's not even attached in this photo because it's a pain to write on things on the top of a box! Here, I've used similar dies to before, with the addition of a Creative Expressions bow die.

Sunday, 28 June 2015

This time at One Stitch at a Time, we're having a colour challenge - you can make anything you like so long as it's got the following colours: red, white and blue.

Our sponsor, as usual is:

See the challenge blog for details.

This time, I used an image from Barbara Jensen called Parrot.

I printed the image onto watercolour paper and coloured with promarkers. I added some shading to the background with Pan Pastels. For the white background, I first die cut using a hexagon border die before embossing with a Cuttlebug folder. I wanted a little more red visible, so I added some red Perle cotton to the hexagons. The card blank is a blue pearl shade from Craft Creations.

Monday, 15 June 2015

The challenge this time is hosted by Vania, and the theme is For a Man or Boy. So, get thinking about those mens' cards and gifts you need to make and join us!

For this challenge, I decided to make a card for my brother-in-law, or I should perhaps say two of them, as my husband's brothers are twins, albeit with birthdays a day apart. I always do something similar for both of them, but not identical. This time, I had a look through my CDRoms and decided to go with the Crafter's Companion disc Diary of an Edwardian Lady and a bird theme.

I kept things simple, combining a number of CD elements and finishing with a personalised greeting.

Sunday, 14 June 2015

This time at One Stitch at a Time, the theme is Anything Goes with Men. We're sponsored by:

See the challenge blog for details.

I decided to make a card for my son, who grew up hearing about Dr. Who, only to have them resurrect the series some years ago. So, when I saw this image from Alipeep's Art, especially when it's a picture of The Doctor, it was perfect for him.

The wording, of course, comes from the series. I made the background paper using some key words from the series, and coloured the image with Promarkers, after adding the speech bubble in Photoshop Elements. The watch is a Marianne die cut which I've touched up with Pan Pastel to make the details more obvious.

Monday, 1 June 2015

This time, at Crafty Cardmakers and More, the challenge is to use stitching. It can be faux, but we'd really like to see some 'real' stitching or embroidery on your project.

I decided to make a card for a colleague who's moving on.

I started by pricking out a regular pattern around some pale, shimmery green card. I then back-stitched it to a piece of darker green, before adding a 'spirelli'-style frame. (Although, I was making patterns like that long before I'd ever heard of 'Spirelli'!) I generated a sentiment in Photoshop Elements and cut and matted that using Spellbinders dies. The flowers are made using Sizzix dies. I shaded the centres with Pan pastels and finished them off with a little liquid pearl.

I used to stitch cards long before I'd heard of rubber stamping or die cutting, and I must say I really enjoyed doing this one. I've got several more leaving cards to do in the next few weeks and I suspect I'll be doing some variations on this theme!

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About this Blog

I'm a cardmaker who's been into crafty things most of my adult life. It used to be knitting and stitching of various varieties (tapestry, cross stitch, hardanger and blackwork) but these days it's pretty much paper-based. I'm enjoying being part of the craft community here on Blogger, and have already learned a lot from everyone. Here you'll see the results of my efforts. Comments are welcome and appreciated.